I'm an aspiring enthusiast of Medieval history, and am thinking of buying a book or book series on the Crusades. Can the good members of AskHistorians give me any recommendations?
Two recommendations:
Jonathan Riley-Smith. The Crusades (New Haven: Yale UP, 2005)
Thomas Madden. The New Concise History of the Crusades (Oxford: Roman & Littlefield, 2006)
Ancillary Literature:
S.J Allen and Emilie Amt, eds. The Crusades: a Reader (Onterio: Broadview, 2003)
Phillipe Contamine. War in the Middle Ages Trans. Michael Jones (Cambridge: Basil Blackwell, 1984)
Nicholas Hooper & Matthew Bennett. Warfare in the Middle Ages (768-1487) Cambridge Illustrated Atlas (Cambridge: Cambridge UP, 1996) Out of Print
Bernard of Clairvaux. In Praise of the new Knighthood Trans. M. Conrad Greenia OCSO. Cistercian Fathers Series 19b (Trappist: Cistercian Publications, 2000)